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It's a sad joke for masochists that like playing Lepers in Darkest Dungeon to make the game harder for themselves. Buff it hard or keep it as the joke it is for comedic value!

12 (19%)

A disappointing mess of ships the AI can't use that should be rebalanced to actually hold up in Endgame

18 (28.6%)

It's a slightly underperforming ship philosophy that is fine where it is because "flavour" and "who plays Low tech only anyway!".

8 (12.7%)

A decently performing array of situational ships that are fine where they are if properly combined.

21 (33.3%)

An annoying array of brick ships that take forever to kill and sometimes deal damage. They either don't work or are way too strong!

4 (6.3%)

Total Members Voted: 63

Voting closed: July 21, 2021, 03:08:08 AM

[intrinsic_parity]

Lmao vulcans/flak and IPDAI make reapers irrelevant/completely ineffective. Nothing in the game can fire enough reapers to get through a moderate IPDAI boosted vulcan/flak screen. The main reason reapers are effective is because AI loadouts are not specialized to stop them.... just like armor. It's almost like if you specialize to stop a strategy, that strategy becomes ineffective.

As to sabots, they are clearly over-tuned, if not overpowered, against the AI because the AI is not capable of executing some strategies to deal with them or planning for sudden spikes in flux. With complete control the player can easily play around them without needing to min-max effective shield HP.

Heavy armor ships with a little specialization in repair/emp resistance can easily armor tank sabots more or less endlessly due to their very low damage/shot and spread over multiple armor cells. The AI just needs to do that more reliably. Specialization into damage boosted beam PD can also shut down sabots before the second stage deploys if you care to min-max against them.

As to resource requirements/efficiency, that's the main reason why I consider low tech underpowered and I hope it's addressed at some point. Low tech ships are fine (albeit maybe slightly undertuned) from a combat effectiveness standpoint, but quite bad from an efficiency standpoint IMO.

[Lucky33]

Legion don't have any vulcans in the rear sector. And it is less than single small mount per missile launcher anyway.

Even in the full armor tank/EMP res/repair build small mounts are stuttering under fire from the ship without officer.

[intrinsic_parity]

Legion don't have any vulcans in the rear sector. And it is less than single small mount per missile launcher anyway.

Even in the full armor tank/EMP res/repair build small mounts are stuttering under fire from the ship without officer.

Why would you ever use an un-officered capital ship lmao. Also, you assumed skills in your analysis of wolf so I don't know why you are not assuming skills in your analysis of legion.

And just to be clear, I don't think legion is particularly good, but that's different from saying it's unviable. It's exceptionally bad against doom though, and I think the rear vulnerability is probably a bit much. I'd like to see it get at least 1-2 mounts with rear coverage. I actually have really been enjoying artillery support legion XIV though (different ship obviously, but still low tech). 2x hurricane MIRV + 5x HVD is very powerful, and it reliably does more damage than my officered doom or my piloted aurora.

[Lucky33]

You didn't get it. The point was that mounts can be damaged even without any skill damage boost. This is the general problem of the whole armor tanking thing. Unreliable weapons. In 0.91 it wasn't that important.

Legion lost its synergy. Fighters are meh, armor/hull tanking is meh, as a missile barge its overpriced, same with gunboat capabilities, as an battlecruiser it lacks mobility and insanely vulnerable without support from other ships.

[Drone_Fragger]

Maybe replace all burn drive abilities with something else, then give low tech ships a doubled zero flux boost, with some fancy “burn drive” Esque effects and reduced turn speed while it’s active?

[Hiruma Kai]

Maybe replace all burn drive abilities with something else, then give low tech ships a doubled zero flux boost, with some fancy “burn drive” Esque effects and reduced turn speed while it’s active?

They kinda need the increased turn speed you get along with zero-flux boost to be honest.  A non-helmsmanship, non-auxiliary thrusters Legion or Onslaught can take a long time to do a 90 degree turn without the zero-flux boost active.  It makes a significant difference to their ability to get pointed in the right direction.

As for the rear arc lacking PD, as a player it can be compensated for with appropriate fighter commands, and for the AI, generally a pair of Xyphos on the Legion (4 burst pd lasers with half the charge rate do a decent enough job - especially if coupled with the elite PD skill) if it needs to be out solo for some reasoning.  But it is definitely a ship that prefers an escort, or perhaps escorting another capital.  Legion XIV I find it a solid escort for an Onslaught, supplementing TPC and sabot spam with hurricanes and bombers.  If you're going up against skilled Dooms, I'd probably go with 4 Xyphos though.  The burst PD and Ion beams will shoot over allied escorting frigates for example.  I admit, it's not the first choice of ship I'd take against said Dooms.

Although, it is funny engaging a skilled, story pointed quad Doom fleet inside a black hole event horizon effect with a low tech theme fleet.

[FooF]

Flat buffs to speed via skills, as Hiruma Kai suggested previously, would benefit Low Tech a lot more than Mid/High which is why I think it's an elegant solution to some of the problems Low Tech has. %-based buffs help the already-mobile craft more than lumbering behemoths and they're the ones that need the help the most.

To come at this "Swap Burn Drive out for something else" from a different angle, what would you replace it with? If an Onslaught lost its mobility system, it would be a worse Paragon in every way. Even if you gave it Accelerated Ammo Feeders, arguably the best offensive system in the game, I still don't think the Onslaught would be worth it because everything could just run away. Same with a Dominator or Enforcer. Likewise, if they all had a Damper Field (a la the Mora), they'd take tremendous punishment but they'd still be plodding along and not able to press any advantage.

If Low Tech had some sort of special 0-flux boost that was +75 or something, you could perhaps argue for a different ship system but without Burn Drive, all of these ships would be a bear to pilot or have in your fleet because they'd never get into position. Or, if Shield Shunt doubled the 0-flux boost, the only ships that could realistically take advantage of it would be heavily armored (i.e. Low Tech). That might achieve the same end, though it would be an OP tax on Low Tech.

I suppose if Shield Shunt also boosted engine output by some flat amount (+30/25/20/15), you could say that the only ships that would likely use the hullmod is Low Tech so it's a buff to Low Tech in general. However, its something of an OP tax on Low Tech to get reasonable engine performance.

[Thaago]

The % speed bonuses becoming flat would be amazing on capitals. I'd swap my opinion on helmsmanship if it were a 10 boost instead of 2.5.

[Arcagnello]

My word there's so many posts to reply to! I'll definetly get back to this thread eventually, but for now:

Hurray! burn drive is getting some love! From the most recent blog post: https://fractalsoftworks.com/2021/05/28/a-tale-of-two-tech-levels/

The problem, however, is that this system very difficult for the AI to use safely. There are just too many factors to consider, but the main problem is that *if it gets it wrong* then this leaves the ship terribly exposed and likely to be destroyed. So, even an AI that got it mostly right – it just takes one mistake, and those are the things that stick in the player’s mind when they see it. The AI, therefore, is very conservative with its use – but this means that Burn Drive is largely not doing the job it was intended for, giving low tech the ability to keep the pressure on when facing technically-faster ships.

So, one key change that supports much of what’s in the rest of this post is making Burn Drive able to be toggled off at any point in the burn. (This can be done either by pressing the system-activation key again, or by venting.)

[Warnoise]

I was bummed when I heard about the new low tech frigate tbh. I would have loved something that slows enemy ships (like launching some sort of giant grappling hook into enemy ship and hinder it's movement) so it at least it offer some interesting support which diversifies the low tech archetype.

Currently it's all burn drive, ammo feeder and damper field.

I am looking forward to changes to Burn Drive nonetheless.

[Arcagnello]

I was bummed when I heard about the new low tech frigate tbh. I would have loved something that slows enemy ships (like launching some sort of giant grappling hook into enemy ship and hinder it's movement) so it at least it offer some interesting support which diversifies the low tech archetype.

Currently it's all burn drive, ammo feeder and damper field.

I am looking forward to changes to Burn Drive nonetheless.

You know I remember playing that Treasure Planet: Battle At Procyon game where there were solar sail ships fighting eachother and there were both harpoons and boarding in there! The hundreds of hours I sank into that game. Here's a video showcasing how much of an absolute gem it was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0YUfDZvL3s


This is, unironically, the closest game to Starsector I've ever seen.

[SCC]

I was bummed when I heard about the new low tech frigate tbh. I would have loved something that slows enemy ships (like launching some sort of giant grappling hook into enemy ship and hinder it's movement) so it at least it offer some interesting support which diversifies the low tech archetype.

Currently it's all burn drive, ammo feeder and damper field.

Low-tech could instead have weapons that do effects as interesting as the high-tech ship systems. But it doesn't.

[Lucky33]

I was bummed when I heard about the new low tech frigate tbh. I would have loved something that slows enemy ships (like launching some sort of giant grappling hook into enemy ship and hinder it's movement) so it at least it offer some interesting support which diversifies the low tech archetype.

Currently it's all burn drive, ammo feeder and damper field.

Low-tech could instead have weapons that do effects as interesting as the high-tech ship systems. But it doesn't.

This.

[Igncom1]

Man some more special artillery would be sick.

Rocket cannons that fire seeking shells!